Sunday, June 22, 2003

If you've been reading the good blogs, then you definitely must have read Pushkar's blog over the past few days and noticing the high entomological content in his posts. Can't blame the guy really, because bugs have come out by the millions since it started raining here last week. In fact there are more bugs here than in all my C++ programs during the engineering days combined.

I have accepted their existence in a very philosophical way. I believe it is their duty to infest this earth and it is my duty to kill them in the most efficient way possible. The bugs and I have reached an understanding similar to Buffy and those vampires who keep popping out of the woodwork for a 2-min job, wherein they make repulsive faces before kicking the blood bucket. Yesterday, Sunil said he had killed at least 100 insects in one day, no exaggeration. Now that makes me insecure, much the same way Buffy would feel if another vampire slayer started outperforming her (dunno if that's ever happened, regular watchers of the series confirm). I have to start practising my side-swat, top-swat and backhand-swat. I must also brush up on my overhead-stomp, wall-crunching stomp, and sideways stomp. There are a few other moves in my arsenal I need to practise but I can't disclose them because I haven't taken a patent yet.

So Sunil, I shall be back in contention. You and I will have a bug-headcount competition, just like Gimli and Legolas had one about the orcs they slayed.

By the way, one new feature of the insectdom in IIML this year, which was absent last year. You know crickets? In marathi, they are called "ratkeedey", which means "night insects", for that is the time they kiss their wives and kids goodbye and get down to business....i.e. start making that irritating noise. However this year, I think a huge delegation of crickets has come here from the United States, possibly to pass sanctimonious judgement on the protection of insect rights in India or to teach us about insect hygiene....maybe even flush out (oops) insect members of the Al Qaida. Whatever the reason for their visit, they are here and their body clocks are still running on EST/PST/MST....whatever the hell those time zones are.

The nub of the matter is that they start their crickety noises in the morning, at about 9 a.m., and this goes on until 6 in the evening. As soon as darkness falls, they pack up their equipment and head back to their hotels for a snooze. So we have crickets that go about their work during the days instead of nights.